The present application relates generally to an improved data processing apparatus and method and more specifically to mechanisms for building and deploying portable composite solutions.
A composite solution is a set of solution components that work together to provide the functions that the solution is to provide. For example, a communications solution may include email, chat, video conferencing, and a directory service. One may build a composite solution by constructing virtual images of the solution components and configuring the components to work together.
It is difficult to reuse virtual images for composite solutions due to Internet Protocol (IP) addresses or host names being built into the pre-installed middleware configuration. Constructing the images from scratch can take hours or days. Reconfiguring the host name or IP addresses requires potentially expensive and time consuming development of custom scripts and support for such changes in the middleware product itself. It is also difficult to create and deploy multi-tiered applications with network components, such as firewalls and load balancers. It is also difficult to on-board solutions delivered in pre-built virtual images into cloud environments. Furthermore, it is time consuming to set up a disaster recovery configuration for composite solutions.